whetu

Hi & welcome. It makes it so much easier to keep up the interest and ride out the setbacks if you have people to talk about stuff with! I'm always getting re-inspired by looking at pics of other people's tanks and hearing about their ideas. Hope to see you around here for a while

The clown loaches love to dig so they might be your biggest problem. They're fine once the plants get their roots properly established, but can be very frustrating with newly planted plants! I have some hygro and ambulia to give away. I recommend both as quick-growing, easy care plants. Send me a PM if you're interested (I'm in Avondale).

I did the black-out + algae fix and I'm delighted with the result. Crystal clear water & apparently no ill effects on the fish. Thanks for the tip, yeeahboy.

Hi all, a couple of months ago Fish Fingers got me out of a tight (plantless) spot by giving me some plant cuttings to get me started again. I am now in the lucky position of being able to 'pay it on' to others. I have ambulia (Limnophila sessiliflora) and hygro (Hygrophila polysperma) cuttings available to give away. These are both great beginners' plants and will grow into lush bunches very quickly. If you're new to keeping aquatic plants I'm happy to talk to you about how to grow these easy-care plants. Experienced plant-keepers also welcome! You will need to pick them up from Avondale during weekends or evenings (or I can be flexible on Mondays and Fridays as I sometimes work from home those days). Send me a PM or post here if interested.

do tell! And how will we recognise you? Do you really look like a duck?

Thanks for the answers - that really helps to diagnose the issue. It does look like your filter may have got a bit overloaded at some stage and suffered a bit of a set-back causing a mini-cycle. Now that you have cleaned it, hopefully it will settle down. I just googled nitrivic as I'm not familiar with this product. It looks like it introduces beneficial micro-organisms to the water to speed up the nitrate cycle (ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate). Some people say this kind of product doesn't do any good, but IMO it doesn't do any harm and might do some good so I hope it helps! Salt is a good way of reducing the stress on your fish caused by nitrite in the water, but be careful with the clown loaches in there - they cannot tolerate much salt in the water so keep a close eye on them looking for signs of stress. At any sign of stress do another partial water change to dilute the salt and remaining nitrite.

In general, if you have nitrIte in the water you should do water changes to reduce stress on your fish. NitrAte readings are something altogether different. In order to give properly informed advice, I have a few questions for you! 1) Is this a newly set up tank or has it been running for some time? 2) How many fish do you have in there, and what types? 3) Have you made any recent changes (eg done a major filter clean, added more fish, etc)? 4) a. Have you been testing for ammonia? b. If so have you noticed a recent ammonia spike? c. What was the highest ammonia reading and when did it happen? 5) What are your nitrite readings? 6) What are your nitrate readings? (Nitrite and nitrate are different things and indicate different processes in the tank) Your answers to these questions will give an indication of what you should do next.

LOL Matthew it's not really a big secret - just buy it from a hardware shop or electrical supply shop rather than a pet shop! Yep, $10.50 for a 4-foot daylight tube. The guy did give me a "trade" discount so you might have to be prepared to spend up to $12 if paying full retail!

I'm just glad it's happening on a weekend. I live in Auckland and work on the Shore so I commute over the bridge by motorbike every day. So far I've never had a problem (even when the signs say "Strong winds - no motorbikes") but I think I would be pushing my luck on a day like today. I did feel the back wheel skip out from underneath me the other day when it was wet and windy and I rode over a cat's eye near the top of the bridge. I thought the bike and I were going over the edge for a moment there! But we recovered and made it home. Adds to the excitement of one's working day :lol:

true!

My sister is in the far north and her power is off - probably going to be a while before it comes back on. In Auckland it's rainy & windy but nothing out of the ordinary so far. I have spare blankets on standby in case the power goes out & I need to insulate my tank.

I would recommend getting a tube as close as possible to "daylight" i.e. a white light. White light contains all the colours of the spectrum, so each plant & fish in your tank will be able to reflect back the colours it contains. I recently replaced one of my older plant-growing tubes with a standard "daylight" tube from an electrical supply shop. Several people have commented since then how bright the cardinal tetras look - like little blue sparks swimming around the tank. The tube cost all of $10.50.

If you have definitely decided to sell the tank in its current state without repairing it first, then it's not worth nearly as much. It is a very high risk for someone to choose to buy the tank in this state, so it's up to the buyers own judgement how much of a risk they are prepared to take.

Good on you for doing your own research, SBD! You're exactly the kind of staff member I would seek out to have an intelligent conversation with if I had issues with my tank. So in summary - Chch water should be 7.0 - 7.4 coming out of the tap, so if a customer's water tests very different to that, it must be something that's happening after they get it out of the tap and put it in their tank. - If their pH is high, ask them about their substrate*. - If the pH is low, ask them about their water-change routine. - Either way, recommend a partial water change. BUT emphasise that several partial water changes are much better than one big one - the change in pH is what really stresses the fish * Tip: Ask them to bring in a sample of their substrate - especially any white stones or stones with white 'seams' in them. Use bottle #1 from the nitrate test kit and put a drop on the white part of the customer's rock. If it sizzles, then the rock contains an alkaline substance that will be raising the pH in their tank. This works because bottle #1 of the nitrate test kit is hydrochloric acid.

Yeah I said something about a 'betta' to a staff member at the same chain store. He also didn't understand until I said "Siamese Fighting Fish." They must have some kind of in-house training system that only ever refers to betta splendens as Siamese Fighting Fish. Personally I object to calling them "fighting fish." It would be like calling certain breeds of dog in a pet shop "fighting dogs"... surely we want to discourage this stereotype?

That does sound like a lot of fish to have in a 10 - 15 litre chilly bin. I would suggest at least see if you can get a larger bin and/or some polystyrene boxes from your LFS. Makes it more difficult to regulate temp etc if you use smaller bins, but in a single small bin there will be quite a build-up of stress-related chemicals over that amount of time, which makes it much harder on your fish. Good luck!

Also if water is left sitting in cement pipes it becomes more alkaline, so sometimes the first bucket of water out of the tap in the morning has a higher pH than the rest of the day! I found out some very interesting things by phoning up my local water supplier and asking to speak to one of their water quality people. He seemed so thrilled that I was even interested in such things as pH in tap water that he was happy to chat for ages! He gave me a very thorough list of all the additives they put in the water, and why they did it, and under what circumstances they would vary the doses. He also discussed very localised variations - for example the area I was living at the time had cement mains because it was quite new, but some other parts of the city have clay or even iron pipes. Really quite fascinating - I do recommend calling up for a chat. I was lucky to find such an enthusiastic (and indulgent) person to talk to. Hopefully you'll get a similar reception!

My cherry barbs are very peaceful, but they don't seem to be too discerning with their 'courtship'. Yours are probably just in the mood for a bit of the old hanky-panky and chase anyone who is nearby! Personally I wouldn't worry unless they are actually harming the other fish. Just make sure a) There's a good size school so they have plenty of their own kind to play with b) There are places the other fish can go to get away from them (like plants that come up fairly high in the water to hide behind) And just enjoy this pretty, active little fish. They have definitely become one of my favourites for both visual attractiveness and temperament.

My clown loaches don't do this. I'm very disappointed in them. They spend all their time the right way up! At least they do when i can see them - maybe they sleep upside down inside their loach caves.

lol I thought he was going to tranquillise the zoo keeper at one point!

Take a sample of both sources of water to your local fish shop and ask them to do a thorough test on all the water parameters. They should have tests for pH, hardness, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and various other ones. If there are ammonia or nitrite in the water (as it comes out of the tap - before it gets into your tank) then you may have trouble. But the fish will adapt to quite wide variations in all the others. Rain water is usually very 'soft' ie hardly any dissolved minerals. It will be interesting to know how this differs from your town supply. The good thing is you won't have chlorine in your tank water (unless you put it there yourself) so you won't have to use chlorine removers any more.

LOL your garage looks much tidier than ours! Presumably (like us) one of the reasons you chose to rent the place was because there was plenty of storage space in the garage. In our garage we have: a sofa three small fridges (all work, none in use) two spare fish tanks & associated gear Piles of boxes of books & papers that don't fit inside the house Tools/spare parts for various bits of machinery/cars/motorbikes two push-bikes and associated equipment (pumps, helmets, etc) two clothes dryers (one works, one doesn't) clothes drying racks gardening gear (including a wheelbarrow) an old sewing machine on an old desk various camping equipment, picnic baskets, chilly-bins, kites, outdoor activity stuff ... probably lots of other stuff I've forgotten Tell the property manager you're a low-maintenance tenant!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... em_guide:3 Scroll down for step-by-step instructions on making a java moss wall.

CARBON: You've covered this by dosing with flourish excel. NUTRIENTS: Do you have a good general fert to dose in the water? Flourish seems to be a good one. (Note: flourish general fert, not flourish excel) LIGHT: What lighting do you have? ie. wattage, type of tube, positioning of tube in relation to moss.

Interesting alright. So the fish that would nibble the dead skin off my feet have just been nibbling at someone else's feet? I don't think I'll be doing that thanks very much.